119 Fighting a Giant Monster

Yun was beginning to get frustrated with her attempts to escape the Kraken's assault. Each time she was preparing to make a leap that might take her beyond it's reach she was foiled by one or more attacks that interfered with her possible exits, forcing her to take short hops that exhausted a good deal of her Qi. She needed to determine a solution, and fast.

How could one combat a creature that was larger than a dozen of the largest vessels? Larger than an entire fortress even? This was a beast that was best measured in kilometers, making it very difficult to combat in any effective manner. Yun continued to dodge while she racked her brain for a method to open a path forwards.

She brought out her spear and took every opportunity to strike a blow, each aborted jump she made she also slashed the offending tentacles, but she refused to get close enough for them to make an alteration to their course in order to hit her midair. She could see the purple blood of the monstrous beast slowly flowing out of it's extremities and into the surrounding water, occluding it even further. Perhaps that would be the answer? Obstruct the Kraken's vision so heavily that it couldn't target her any longer, opening a path for her escape.

She began to intentionally create more chances to harm the Kraken's reaching tentacles, spreading the blood much faster. As she employed this plan of harm on her captor she felt like she was finally getting somewhere. It was beginning to respond further and further away from the cargo ship that it was still hanging on to now.

Bit by bit Yun felt like she was gaining distance, she felt like she was nearly to the point where she could actually escape for real. She dodged, bobbed, weaved, and leaped around the flailing tentacles in order to draw even more blood. As she fought she finally managed to leap beyond the barrier that the Kraken had been creating.

Fleeing rapidly, Yun tried to create as much distance as possible between her and the Kraken as possible before it could see her again, while simultaneously angling for the shore to escape it's reach.

Sadly she was fated to fail. As she leapt forward the Kraken raised up three tentacles and formed a wall in front of her. She responded quickly, using her spear to stab into the one on the side nearest the shore, then using the flexibility of her spear and the toughness of it's hide, rebounded quickly and angled towards the shore again. The massive walls of flesh crashed into the water behind her, kicking up massive waves from the combined area they impacted. Yet again, as she was readying to leap toward shore, another wall rose before her. She rebounded off this one too, but this time before she could even land on the water she had to face another group of tentacles. As she stabbed into the third group she caught a glimpse of the cargo vessel, still tightly wrapped, and noticed it was closer than before. She had fled away from it, so the Kraken must have dragged it along to catch her.

Blast! If the main body had closed the distance as well then she really was in the thick of it. It would be incredibly difficult to escape at this time.

This was why they said nobody escaped from these monstrosities!

Between the incredible reach and the ability to rapidly move underwater these Kraken beasts were really any warrior's nightmare. It wasn't like you could possibly fight one on land, as their massive size would never permit them to leave the water. As it was, Yun couldn't even reach the surface of the water at all right now as she weaved through the forest of rising and falling tentacles. Each rising tentacle provided her a foothold, saving her from expending Qi on creating ice, but also expending more of her physical strength than before.

Seeing that she couldn't currently reach the water's surface, Yun called out her Lightning element Argent Spear and set it loose to assault the rising tentacles, trying to discourage the increased attacks that were trying to pound her into the water's surface.

Finally, after what felt like an age, Yun managed to reach the water's surface again. The amount of blood that had seeped into the local water had reached such a density that the water looked more like a blood pond than a river for hundreds of meters downstream. Yun knew that each disturbance of the water's surface would expose her to more risk, so she did the only thing she could. She took one last leap and retrieved her rope and hook from storage in an effort to hook a branch on a tree near the shore, avoiding the need to touch the water again at all.

As she flew through the air she felt that she was still too far, so she took one last risky leap with all her strength.

Twenty meters.

Nineteen meters.

Eighteen meters.

Fifteen meters.

Ten meters!

She threw the hook with all her might, hoping that the eight meters of rope she had previously attached to the hook would be enough.

As the hook flew through the air she felt a tingle creep down her spine, followed by her raised hackles shivering. This strange feeling prompted her to look over her shoulder, and the sight behind her made her fear for her life.

The Kraken had risen to the surface and pushed just enough of it's massive head out of the water for one enormous eye to rise above the river and stare directly at her, a gaze full of bloodlust that nearly froze Yun's entire soul!

In that moment the hook caught on the tree branch and Yun instinctively pulled hard, saving herself from the tentacle that rose from the river beneath where she had just been a moment before. Thanks to the short period of time it had, the Kraken had barely reached that point when it tried to attack this time.

Yun was sweating buckets as she flew into the forest and began to flee for her life on land. The Kraken behind her continued thrashing, reaching out onto the land as it tried to pursue her with it's long reach!